


Time after Time

by Goldy



Series: Time after Time [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Hopeful Ending, Post Time Jump, Reunion Fic, post 4x17, season 5 spoilers/speculation, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26569420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: As he turns, the crowd seems to part in front of him like the parting of the red sea. There are bodies everywhere, but somehow he has a clear path all the way to where she is sitting. Betty Cooper. It has been seven years, but somehow there mere sight of her knocks the breath out of him.Jughead sees Betty again for the first time post time-jump.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: Time after Time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952347
Comments: 43
Kudos: 113
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	Time after Time

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow the image of Jughead seeing Betty for the first time again after the time jump took hold of me and wouldn't leave me until I wrote it. So here we are. Hope you enjoy!

It is Friday night and Pop’s is filled to bursting.

He has to elbow others out of the way just to maintain his place in line. The wait is worth it though if only for the dazzling smile on Pop’s face when he finally makes it to the cash.

“Jughead Jones!” he says in a deep, pleased voice. “I haven’t seen a sight of you in… oh… what is it now?”

“Seven years,” says Jughead. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the din of the crowd.

“Welcome back to Riverdale,” says Pop and he winks. “What can I get you, kid? The usual?”

_Kid._ He is 24 now, and has not been a kid in longer than the seven years he has been away. But the nickname touches him and he shrugs, trying to hide the way his mouth is beginning to water in anticipation.

“Sure, Pop. The usual sounds good.”

“Coming right up!” says Pop with a flourish.

Pop’s rings up his order perfectly: a double patty burger with cheese and bacon, large fry, chocolate milkshake. Jughead pays and then edges out of the way to let the next person in line have their turn. He leans over the countertop as he waits for his food. The décor lining the walls is achingly familiar but distant, like a vivid dream clinging to him in that place between sleep and wake. The customers stuffed into the diner around him are mostly high school students. The boys are wearing puffy Bulldogs jackets, the girls are wearing cheerleader outfits or lipstick that is a shade too bright.

It is like hearing a song on the radio that he has not heard a long time. He is transported back to his own days of packing into a booth at Pop’s on Friday nights after school, tucked in with Archie and Betty and Veronica.

The memories make him feel nostalgic and a little bit sad. He is relieved when his food comes a moment later in a folded up paper bag that is already showing hints of grease stains along the bottom. He grabs the bag and his milkshake, suddenly eager to put as much space between himself and Pop’s as he can.

As he turns, the crowd seems to part in front of him like the parting of the red sea. There are bodies everywhere, but somehow he has a clear path all the way to where _she_ is sitting. Betty Cooper. It has been seven years, but somehow there mere sight of her knocks the breath out of him.

His only saving grace is that somehow she has not noticed him yet.

Her hair is pulled tightly back in a ponytail just like it was all throughout high school. She is hunched over in a booth, laptop and coffee on one side of her, and a pile of loose-leaf papers on the other side of her. She is pouring through the loose-leaf papers as he stares at her. She is wearing red-rimmed glasses that he has never seen before. He finds himself entranced by the glasses. Does she need them just for reading? Or perhaps she always wears them now. They seem to make her look older, more sophisticated somehow.

She is wearing a pencilled skirt and a blouse tucked into the shirt. A discarded blazer rests next to her in the booth.

Last Jughead heard from his father, Betty had joined the FBI – some top secret department that studied odd, unexplained phenomenon and cold cases. None of that had surprised him. But it _does_ surprise him to see her here, at Pop’s, working diligently away, oblivious to the noisy chaos around her.

Of course, back in high school, he too had come to Pop’s to write – somehow the noise of Pop’s was always easier to filter out than the sounds of his parents arguing or his father stumbling and banging drunkenly around the trailer.

Either way, he can tell she is working. And he should go. He should take his bag of food and his milkshake and he should go. He has already stared at her too long. It is a wonder she has not seem him yet. Besides, he has moved on, hasn’t he? He has a _girlfriend_ and they are happy. Well, sort of happy. Kind of. He thinks.

It certainly is not going to help his relationship with his girlfriend to be caught with his old girlfriend.

His feet are moving and he intends to direct them to the exit, really he does, but somehow his feet shuffle him over to her table. He stares down at her, the bag of food heavy in his hands, the grease stains spreading by the second, and then clears his throat.

Betty pauses in her reading and then tilts her head up to look at him. She stares at him through those new glasses of hers and he feels something curl and tighten in his stomach and he thinks, almost hysterically, it will _not_ help his relationship that he finds Betty Cooper in those glasses the most irresistibly sexy things he has ever seen.

But he’s not an _animal._ He has not come over here just to stare at her. He sets the milkshake down on the table and, still gripping his bag of food, clears his throat a few times.

“Hello,” he finally manages, and the sound is more of a croak than a word, but he feels proud that at least he has said _something_.

Betty is not at all taken aback by seeing him again. She seems amused like she has just recalled an inside joke he wouldn’t understand.

“Jughead,” she says, and there is something light and warm about the way she says his name, and he wants to bask in it like a cat basking in the sun.

_Fuck_ , he thinks. _Fuck_.

“I saw you the moment you came in through the door,” Betty continues. “I had a silent bet going with myself as to whether you would come speak to me.”

She tries to mask the hurt in her voice, but he catches it all the same. He feels a pang of regret– did he really think that he could leave without speaking to her? That he could walk all the way into Pop’s and out again without her noticing him? He’s an idiot.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. He thinks about offering her more, about reminding her that it had been hard – their breakup. It had been graduation night when she finally broke down and told him about what happened with Archie. The story came out haltingly in between sobs and frantic “ _I love yous”_ and clutching him so tightly, he worried her fingers would leave marks on his arms.

And he told her he forgave her and they could get past it and what was a little distance after everything else they had been through? He _meant_ that at the time, but what he had not foreseen was how difficult it would be to trust her, and how the distance and separation played on his worst fears and insecurities. Their conversations over those next few months became less frequent, more stilted, and eventually… fizzled out.

Never in his life could he have predicted his relationship with Betty would fizzle out. If it had not been for what happened with Archie, maybe it would have been different.

But he tries not to live on ifs and maybes.

“Jughead Jones, back in Riverdale,” she says with a shake of her head. “I wasn’t sure I would ever see that again.”

He shrugs. “It’s Jellybean’s 18th birthday. I had no choice.”

“Ah,” says Betty. “I did hear that was the social event of the year.”

Silence descends, awkward silence, and he shifts back and forth. He searches for something to say. “So are you… is that FBI stuff?”

She looks down at the papers in front of her and her mouth quirks into a half smile. “Yeah,” she says. “Nothing top secret, though. Don’t worry.” She glances back up at him, sees the bag he’s holding and then gestures to him. “Take a seat and dig in. I’ll tell you about it while you eat.”

The invitation sets his heart pounding and he is suddenly glad that he is still holding the Pop’s takeout bag otherwise he’s worried his hands would be shaking. Sitting down would be a bad idea. He knows exactly where it will lead:

_She will tell him about whatever investigation she has sunk her teeth into. He’ll offer to help. She’ll let him. Two heads on the case are better than one. And in a few weeks, in a few days, he’ll be calling Jessica – saying, no, it has nothing to do with Betty, really, they’ve been on the rocks for a while now, they both know it, and it isn’t fair to either of them. And he’ll return to investigating with Betty, guilty but relieved, and the distance between them will start to melt until eventually they fall back on old patterns. They’ll come to a break in the investigation and she will smile at him and he won’t be able to stop himself from leaning in and pressing his lips to hers…_

Betty is _looking_ at him with those glasses of hers, waiting for an answer, trying not to let the eagerness show on her face. He tells himself he’s letting his mind run away from him. This is not a book he is writing. All she wants is someone to bounce some ideas off. He’s always been good at that. That’s all this is.

So he nods and sets the bag down on the table.

“I would love to,” he says, and slides into the seat across from her.


End file.
